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‘I Absolutely Cancel Myself’: George Washington University Professor Apologizes For Pretending To Be Black

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A George Washington University professor has apologized for pretending to be black, admitting Thursday in a Medium blog post that she is a white Jewish woman from Kansas.

Jessica A. Krug is a history professor at George Washington University specializing in “Africa and the African Diaspora,” the University’s website says. Her author biography once described her as “an unrepentant and unreformed child of the hood,” according to Business Insider senior editor Graham Starr.

Krug wrote in her blog that she is a “culture leech.”

“To an escalating degree over my adult life, I have eschewed my lived experience as a white Jewish child in suburban Kansas City under various assumed identities within a Blackness that I had no right to claim: first North African Blackness, then US rooted Blackness, then Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness,” Krug said. (RELATED: Rachel Dolezal Is Trying To Commercialize Her Fake Blackness Just In Time For Christmas)

“I have not only claimed these identities as my own when I had absolutely no right to do so — when doing so is the very epitome of violence, of thievery and appropriation, of the myriad ways in which non-Black people continue to use and abuse Black identities and cultures — but I have formed intimate relationships with loving, compassionate people who have trusted and cared for me when I have deserved neither trust nor caring,” she added.

Krug went on to say that mental health problems are to blame for her pretending to be black and that mental health professionals told her that it’s a “common response” to “severe trauma” that she endured over her childhood.

“But mental health issues can never, will never, neither explain nor justify, neither condone nor excuse, that, in spite of knowing and regularly critiquing any and every non-Black person who appropriates from Black people, my false identity was crafted entirely from the fabric of Black lives,” Krug said. “I am not a culture vulture. I am a culture leech.”

Krug then referred to herself as a “coward” who deserves to be “canceled.”

“I believe in accountability,” she said. “And I believe in cancel culture as a necessary and righteous tool for those with less structural power to wield against those with more power.”

“I should absolutely be cancelled,” Krug continued. “No. I don’t write in passive voice, ever, because I believe we must name power. So. You should absolutely cancel me, and I absolutely cancel myself.”

She then apologized to everyone that she has “harmed” and “gaslit” by pretending to be black.

“There is no way for me to satisfactorily end this statement,” Krug added. “This isn’t a confession, it isn’t a public relations move, and it damn sure isn’t a shield. It is the truth, though.”